Green agenda for the G8 summit

Green agenda for the G8 summit

Monday 7 July 2008 19.01 EDT
First published on Monday 7 July 2008 19.01 EDT

Max Hastings (Comment, July 7) is wrong to think there is a conflict between tackling climate change and coping with threatened living standards. Indeed, the policies required to protect the planet are precisely those that will be absolutely crucial in tackling growing unemployment and countering the financial crisis. This case will be made in a report entitled The Green New Deal to be launched this month by a group of finance, energy and environment experts, as Larry Elliott writes (Economics, July 7). Drawing inspiration from Roosevelt's original, it will show how regulating finance, a fairer, greener tax system, and a massive investment programme in a low-carbon energy infrastructure will help tackle what is shaping up to be the worst global economic decline since the 1930s. Green policies are no longer something that ought to happen. They will have to happen to address the unavoidable political imperatives of generating millions of jobs and encouraging countless new businesses.Colin HinesEast Twickenham, Middlesex

This Friday is World Population Day. The UN has estimated that a 50% increase in food grain production is needed worldwide by 2030 to meet human basic needs. What will happen during the 20 years after 2030, by which time the world population is currently estimated to reach 9 billion, 50% up on present population? There is one thing that can be done to save the world from starvation and that is a massive programme of birth control, one that gives every woman access to education, information about, and means of, birth control. That's something the G8 leaders in Japan should be giving priority to this week as well.Chris Padley Market Rasen, Lincolnshire

While the G8 is dominated by talk of fuel, food, and finance (Leaders, July 7), the Guardian's reporting sets a welcome tone by reminding us of the unmet G8 commitments of 2005. One F keeps getting neglected though. An F which undermines progress against the health, education and economic targets for development: faeces. It's killing children, preventing attendance at school, and draining economic resources.

Your health editor Sarah Boseley recently reported that lack of sanitation and water were the biggest killers of children in Katine, Uganda. WaterAid goes further by releasing a report revealing that sanitation may be the biggest cause of child deaths not only in Katine, but in the whole world, and yet this crisis goes unchecked. If the G8 is serious about "the west fulfilling its African aid pledge", then sanitation must be on the international agenda. There are 2.6 billion people waiting for toilets and 5,000 children dying of diarrhoea each day while the leaders of the rich world decide.Oliver CummingPolicy officer, WaterAid